Like The Tide
by Gabi217
Summary: A father ponders the fates of his children as the tide rolls in. Oneshot.


_**Some of you guys are going to be like, "Wha-ha! Get going with the next chapter, you dolt!" But see, if I don't get this oneshot out now, it'll stay in my notebook, maybe forever. And we can't have that, now can we?**_

**Disclaim: Characters belong to Jo and her boys. I own the bad plot and the sad ideas, and the song belongs to the Spill Canvas. Oh, and the children. The children belong to the Spill Canvas too. Sorry. **

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**The Tide**

_By: gabi217_

He stared out the window and watched the tide roll in, pleased by his accuracy. Down the hall he felt the closing of doors, the shuffling of feet, the rustles of clothing as they moved, the vibrations tingling his bare toes. He felt the cool air wash over him, the redness in his cheeks draining as the heat from his body froze away. Behind him, the curtains were drawn against the light, just enough to hide the slumbering form. Another he didn't know. Another night he dared not remember.

As he fingered the latch on the window, watched the waves pull in and fade out, he thought of the news, of his three children, _their_ three children, how he had left her in anger and boredom, and the fate of the little lives he had created, born to be feared and powerful, beautiful and adored. And now, as guilt flooded him and the sheets rustled behind him, he forced himself to recall it. Recall it all.

Oh, the briefness was so gentle - he had done so _wrong_, and as his life halted, he realized how many mistakes he had made in that little time - how had he grown bored of the one he obsessed over? Every night he saw her emotion-filled face and wished, _oh_, he _cried_ for another chance to take it all away, and yet when he woke, he was still the same old him, with the same old deadness. The same dead life. The same dead tiredness. The same Draco Malfoy he had come to cringe at when he looked in the mirror, so different of the one he remembered when his eyes cast down upon the ocean.

_Twenty-two. _A fine, ripe age and year when he met her, his one year of love and magical moments, the winding up and pitch of everything new. He found her in a bar and cornered her.

"Your eyes hold a future that belongs to me," he said, and no sooner she was swooned and swathed in his blankets, gold band around her finger and excitement to her stomach. One night said it all, and this, conception was abroad, her idea to start a family. Their idea. A wonderful idea.

But alas, that year flew and her abundance was a great burden as his ego began to reclaim him. Triplets he named, _Veronica_, _Vada,_ _Dade. _Two girls and a boy who complemented each other

completely, three children whose affection for their father swelled each day. And no matter how he loved her, no matter how great his legacy would be, his boredom took choking hold and he up and left them one night, alone, in their house on the beach.

"I'll always remember you," he had told each of them in turn, tears in his eyes, and now he mouthed the words, unforgivable. He turned bitterly toward his wardrobe, pulling open the doors discreetly.

The pictures and articles jumped boldly, the titles too … too … something. His mind wouldn't comprehend them and his heart couldn't bear them, so he ignored them in silence. He knew what they said, anyway. He was dwelling in guilt as he brushed his fingers over their faces, the three of them laughing and smiling as they splashed about. His eyes wandered again, to the waves, the schedule he had memorized so perfectly. More often than not, he dreamt, he stood barefooted in the sand, calling to them, "You wouldn't want to be swept up in the tide, would you?"

He would laugh as they ran to him, clinging to him, and walk them back to the house, where she would wait with lunch, and she would always ask, "Why back so early?"

And he would motion to the shore, and tonelessly remark, "If I ever left you, the tide would carry them away."

When he left her, he stayed close - his darlings, he needed them and they relied on him. But the years passed and the eve of their last day being fourteen , he broke away. And just as he had joked, a remark turned reality, life crashed them, drowned them.

_And there's three, count 'em three _

_children playing on the beach _

_They were eager to learn, _

_to be taught and to teach _

_There's Veronica _

_She's biting her lip _

_as she watches the waves turn white at the tip _

_And there's Vada _

_Radiating with joy _

_and luckily she still can't stand the sight of a boy _

_And lastly there's Dade _

_His hair dances in the wind _

_and he's wondering what love is _

_And why it has to end _

_And he can't understand _

_how everyone goes on breathing when true love ends _

_His mother whispers quietly... _

_Heaven's not a place that you go when you die _

_It's that moment in life when you actually feel alive _

_So live for the moment _

_And take this advice, live by every word _

_Love is just a hoax so forget anything that you have heard _

_and live for the moment now _

_And there's three, count 'em three _

_children growing on the beach _

_They were eager to learn, _

_to be taught and to teach _

_There's Veronica _

_She's licking her lips _

_as she waits for her real, first passionate kiss _

_And there's Vada _

_Can't admit her jealousy _

_of her sister Veronica, and how she's so pretty (and how she's so pretty) _

_Lastly there's Dade _

_Still sitting on the dock _

_He ponders his life, and he skips his rocks _

_And he wonders when his father will return _

_but he's not coming back _

_And he can't understand _

_how everyone goes on breathing when true love ends _

_His mother whispers quietly... _

_Heaven's not a place that you go when you die _

_It's that moment in life when you actually feel alive _

_So live for the moment _

_And take this advice, live by every word _

_Love is just a hoax so forget everything that you have heard (forget everything) _

_And there's three, count 'em three _

_children missing from the beach _

_They were eager to learn, _

_to be taught and to teach _

_But the sad thing _

_is that they never lived passed the age of fifteen _

_due to neglect from their mother _

_Who was bed ridden by her ex-lover, their father _

_She didn't even notice, or pay much attention _

_as the tide came in and swept her three into the ocean _

_Now all her advice, it seems useless _

_No, heaven's not a place that you go when you die _

_It's that moment in life when you touch her and you feel alive _

_So live for the moment _

_And take this advice, live by every word _

_Love's completely real, so forget anything that you have heard _

_and live for the moment now_

He hadn't bedridden her, but he hadn't know she'd be so lifeless. The day the tide came in, and swept his three into the ocean, was the day he let go of all things right. The night they drowned, his beautiful, powerful children, was the night he loved and hated her most. Which is why, on their birthday, something rose him from the bed, where it was warm and delicious and wrong, to the icy waves as the tide rolled in that afternoon. He felt emptied as his fingers touched the glass, sudden grief overwhelming him as he stood by the window. But not even this feeling could match what would come when the Prophet came. It would bring the feeling of a riptide, caught beneath, but ebbing out slowly, like a last breath sighed in ecstasy. And as the gentle trickle passed before his eyes, he let go. Who knew grief could kill like the tide.

-fin


End file.
